Life As We Knew It lawki-1

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Peter and Jon broke the wishbone. Jon won, but it didn’t matter since we all have the same wish.

  November 26

  I guess the chicken really revitalized Mom, because today she decided we were all wasting our lives and that had to stop. Of course it’s true, but it’s still pretty funny that Mom felt the need to make a big deal out of it. “Have any of you done a bit of schoolwork all fall?” she asked. “You too, Matt. Have you?”

  Well, of course not. We tried to look shamefaced. Bad us for not doing algebra when the world is coming to an end.

  “I don’t care what you study,” Mom said. “But you have to study something. Pick one subject and work on that. I want to see open schoolbooks. I want to see some learning going on here.”

  “I absolutely refuse to study French,” I said. “I’ll never go to France. I’ll never meet anyone from France. For all we know, there isn’t a France anymore.”

  “So don’t study French,” Mom said. “Study history. We may not have a future, but you can’t deny we have a past.”

  That was the first time I ever heard Mom say that about the future. It shocked any possible fight out of me.

  So I picked history as my subject. Jon picked algebra and Matt said he’d help him with it. Matt admitted he’d been wanting to read some philosophy. And Mom said if I wasn’t going to use my French textbook, she would.

  I don’t know how long this burst of studying is going to last, but I understand Mom’s point. The other night I dreamed that I found myself in school for a final and not only hadn’t I been to class and didn’t know anything, but the school was just the way it had been and everybody there was normal looking and I was dressed in layers of clothes and hadn’t washed in days and everyone stared at me like I was a drop-in from hell.

  At least now if it’s a history test, I’ll have a fighting chance of knowing some of the answers.

  November 30

  There’s nothing like schoolwork to make a person want to play hooky.

  I told Mom I wanted to go for a walk and she said, “Well, why don’t you? You’ve been spending entirely too much time indoors.”

  I love her but I could throttle her.

  So I layered up and walked over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s house. I don’t know what I was looking for or what I was expecting to find. But the house had been ransacked since the day she’d died. That was to be expected. We’d taken everything we could use, but there was stuff like furniture that we didn’t need and other people had taken for themselves.

  It felt funny walking around the empty house. It reminded me of Megan’s house when I’d gone there, like the house itself was dead.

  After I’d walked around awhile, I realized what I wanted to do was explore the attic. Maybe that hadn’t been gone through, or at least not as thoroughly

  And sure enough, even though all the boxes had been opened and contents pulled out, there was plenty of stuff left in there. And that’s when I knew I was there looking for a Christmas present for Matt. Jon had the baseball cards. Mom had the box of chocolates. But I wanted Matt to have something, too.

  Most of what was lying around on the floor was old linens, tablecloths, and stuff like that. There were piles of old clothes, too, nothing anyone could have found usable.

  When I’d gone through the attic the first time, it had been crowded with boxes, but everything was neatly packed away. Now it was chaos. Not that it mattered. I looked through piles of things, through boxes that had been gone through but nothing taken out. And finally I found something I could give Matt.

  It was a dozen or so different colored pencils from an old color-by-number picture set. The pictures had all been carefully colored in, but their backs were blank, so I decided to take them, too.

  Back in high school, Matt had done some drawing. I wasn’t sure he’d even remember it, but I did, because he did a sketch of me in a much better layback position than I’d ever really managed. Mom had loved it and wanted to hang it up, but it embarrassed me because I knew it wasn’t really me and I threw a tantrum until she gave up on the idea. I guess she kept the picture, but I don’t know where she hid it.

  At some point Matt’s going to stop chopping firewood and when he does he can take up art again, to go along with his philosophy studies.

  I went through the other stuff in the attic, but the pencils were definitely the high point. So I thanked Mrs. Nesbitt and went home. Just to be sneaky, I went in through the front door and took the color-by-number set up to my bedroom before returning to the sunroom.

  We may not have a chicken for Christmas dinner, but at least there’ll be presents.

  December 1

  For the third straight day the temperature was above zero this afternoon, so I took Mom’s skates and went to the pond.

  There was no one there. (I’m really starting to think that whole Brandon thing was a hallucination.) In a funny way, it was better that I was alone, since I never am at home. Mom can definitely hobble around now, so I don’t have to hover around her all the time, but it’s way too cold in the house to spend much time anyplace but the sunroom.

  I skated around the pond, nothing fancy and incredibly slow. I had to be careful, since there were chunks of ice missing. I guess people have been hacking away at it for water, the way we will once Mrs. Nesbitt’s water runs out.

  The air is so bad I don’t know how Matt and Jonny manage. I’d skate for a few minutes and then start coughing. I probably didn’t skate for more than 15 minutes total, but I was exhausted by the time I finished, and it took most of my strength to get back home.

  Matt, Mom, and I are down to one meal a day, but at least we’re eating 7 days a week. And maybe the temperature really is warming up, and that’ll make things better.

  Chapter Seventeen

  December 2

  Fridays Matt goes to the post office first thing in the morning. Lately he’s been coming home in the early afternoon. Even though the days are all gray, there’s still a difference between daytime and night and it gets dark very early now.

  Mom, Jon, and I were in the sunroom and it must have been before noon because Jon hadn’t gotten anything to eat. We had two oil lamps going because, even in daytime with the fire in the woodstove, we still need two lamps to have enough light to read by.

  Jon was the first one to notice. “Does it seem darker to you?” he asked.

  He was right. It was darker. First we looked at the oil lamps to see if one of them had gone out. Then we looked at the woodstove.

  Mom tilted her head up. “It’s snowing,” she said. “The skylights are covered with snow.”

  With the windows covered by plywood, we can’t see what’s going on outside. But since the only change in the weather for months has been the temperature, there hasn’t been much need to see what’s happening.

  The kitchen window is covered with plywood, too, and we can’t get to the windows in the dining room, so we all went to the living room to see what was happening.

  It must have been snowing for an hour or more. It was coming down at a furious pace.

  As soon as we realized it was snowing, we also realized the wind was blowing. “It’s a blizzard,” Jon said.

  “We don’t know that,” Mom said. “The snow could stop in a minute.”

  I couldn’t wait. I grabbed my coat and ran outside. I would have done the same for rain or sunlight. It was something different and I had to experience it.

  Jon and Mom followed me. “The snow looks weird,” Jon said.

  “It’s not quite white,” Mom said.

  That was it. It wasn’t dark gray, like the piles of plowed snow in March. But it wasn’t pure white, either. Like everything else these days, it was dingy.

  “I wish Matt were home,” Mom said, and for a moment I thought she meant that she wished she could share the moment with him, the excitement of snow. But then I realized she was worried about him getting home. The post office is about 4 miles from here, which isn’t that far if you’re biking, b
ut could take a long time to walk, especially in blizzard conditions. “You want me to go get him?” Jon asked. “No,” Mom said. “He’s probably on his way home now. And it’s not like he’ll get lost. I’d just feel better if he were home.”

  “One good thing,” I said. “If there’s any kind of accumulation we’ll have a water supply.”

  Mom nodded. “Jonny, get the barrels and the garbage cans, and put them outside,” she said. “We can collect snow in them.”

  Jon and I took everything that could hold snow and put them by the side of the house. By the time we had the last recycling bin out there, the garbage can already had an inch of snow in it.

  Jon was right. It was a blizzard.

  We went back in but none of us could concentrate on our books. We kept our coats on and sat in the living room, watching the snow fall and waiting for Matt’s return.

  At some point Jon made himself some lunch. While he was in the sunroom I asked Mom if I should go get Matt.

  “No!” she said sharply. “I can’t risk losing two of you.”

  I felt like she’d punched me. Matt couldn’t possibly be lost. We couldn’t survive without him.

  Mom didn’t say anything after that and I knew to keep my mouth shut. Finally she went back to the sunroom and when she did, I went outside and walked toward the road just to see what conditions were like. The wind was so fierce it came close to knocking me over. The snow was falling almost sideways and I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead.

  I barely made it to the road, but when I got there I couldn’t see anything anyway. Matt could have been 20 feet down the road and I wouldn’t have known. Mom was right. I couldn’t possibly have made it to town. I could only hope Matt could make the long walk and that he’d known enough to leave once the snow had begun falling.

  I went back in and made up some nonsense about going outside to check on the snow collection system. If Mom suspected differently she didn’t say anything.

  We went back and forth between the sunroom and the living room. Mom went out just past the front door and stood there for a few minutes until I made her come in.

  I could see how excited Jon was, the way a kid is when it snows. It was killing him to suppress his excitement. It was killing Mom to suppress her fear. And it was killing me to see both of them trying to hide their feelings.

  As the day progressed the sky grew darker and the wind stronger.

  “I really think I should go find Matt,” Jon said. “I could take one of the oil lamps.”

  “Maybe he should, Mom,” I said. At this point Jon is stronger than me and a lot stronger than Mom. He might even be stronger than Matt, just because he’s been eating more. If Matt needed help, Jon was the only one of us who could give it to him.

  “No,” Mom said. “For all we know Matt is staying in town with a friend to wait the storm out.”

  But I knew Matt wouldn’t do that. He’d come home. Or at least he’d try to. He’d be as worried about us as we were about him.

  “Mom, I really think Jon should go out,” I said. “Just a little way down the road but with a lamp. It’s getting so dark Matt could go right past our drive and not realize it.”

  I could see how much Mom hated the idea. I decided to try a different approach.

  “How about if I go out first?” I said. “And then in a few minutes Jon could take over for me and then I could take over for him. We’d rotate, and that way neither one of us could get into any trouble.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Jon said. “I’ll go first. Send Miranda out in a few minutes.”

  “All right, all right,” Mom said. “Fifteen minutes and then I’ll send Miranda out.”

  Jon looked really excited and in a funny way I didn’t blame him. Mom made sure he was thoroughly bundled up: coat and gloves and scarves and boots. She told him not to go too far and to hold the lamp as high as he could to give Matt a beacon.

  I waited alongside Mom. We didn’t say anything. I didn’t dare and Mom was way too wound up to make small talk. Finally she gestured to me to get ready.

  “I hope this isn’t a mistake,” she said.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said. “I bet I’ll bring Matt home with me.”

  But by the time I reached the driveway I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to where Jon was. It didn’t seem to matter how many layers of clothes I had on, the wind was so fierce it cut right through everything. I especially felt it on my face. I put the scarf over my mouth and nose, but even so my face burned with the cold. The snow and the darkness made it impossible for me to see anything except what the lamp illuminated. I stumbled several times and the wind blew me over twice. The snow seeped through my pants and even my long johns grew cold and wet.

  At one point I pulled the scarf away from my mouth so I could gulp air. But I fell into the snow and swallowed a mouthful, which got me coughing. I wanted to give up and go back to the sunroom, to the woodstove. But Jon was out there waiting for me to relieve him. My idea. My big bright idea.

  I have no idea how long it took me to get to Jon. He was jumping up and down, the light swinging wildly.

  “You stay warmer that way,” he told me.

  I nodded and told him to go back to the house. I gestured toward where I remembered the house to be. “Tell Mom I’m fine,” I said, even though we both knew it was a lie.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said.

  I watched as he began trudging back. But in a minute or two I couldn’t see him anymore, even though I knew he wasn’t very far away.

  As I stood out there I began laughing at myself, at how desperate I’d been to be alone. Now I was as alone as any human being could be, and all I wanted was to be back in the sunroom with Matt and Jonny and Mom and Horton all taking up space.

  I knew I’d be okay as long as I stayed put. I wasn’t going to get lost and Mom would see to it I wasn’t out long enough to freeze to death or even to get frostbite. The only one of us in danger was Matt.

  But with the wind whipping around and the snow blinding me and my entire body freezing from the cold and the damp, it was hard to feel safe and secure. In addition to everything else, I was hungry. I’m always hungry except right after supper, but I was hungry the way I get right before supper, so I figured it must be around 5.

  I realized Jon was right about moving around so I jogged in place. I was doing okay until a gust of wind caught me off guard and I fell into the snow and the oil lamp went out.

  It took all my strength, physical and emotional, to keep from hysteria. I told myself I’d be okay, that Jon would find me, that Matt would get home, that the lamp could be relit, that everything was going to be fine.

  But for a moment there I felt as though I’d been thrown into a snow globe by some powerful giant, that I was a prisoner and would never be free. I felt as though the world really was coming to an end and even if Matt made it home, we would all die anyway.

  There was no point getting off the ground. I sat there, holding on to the useless lamp, waiting for Jonny, waiting for Matt, waiting for the world to finally say, “That’s enough. I quit.”

  “Miranda?”

  Was it Matt? Was it the wind? Was it a hallucination? I honestly didn’t know.

  “Miranda!”

  “Matt?” I said, struggling to get up. “Matt, is that really you?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked and the question was so dumb but so reasonable I burst out laughing.

  “I’m rescuing you,” I said, gasping, which only made me laugh louder.

  “Well, thank you,” Matt said. I think he laughed then, also, but the wind and my madness made it hard for me to tell.

  “Come on,” he said, reaching down to pull me up. “Let’s go home.”

  We began walking against the wind toward the drive. Matt walked his bike on one side and held on to me on the other. At one point the wind blew me down and I pushed him down and he pushed the bike down. It took us a moment to get back upright and by the time we had, we
could see Jon’s oil lamp bobbing in the distance.

  There was no point calling out to Jon, but we used the lamp as a guide and slowly made our way toward it. When we reached Jon he hugged Matt so hard I thought he’d drop the lamp and we’d all be there in total darkness. But the lamp stayed lit and we forged our way back to the house.

  We went in through the front door and when we did, Matt called out, “We’re home!”

  Mom came racing as fast as she could toward us. Of course she hugged Matt first, but then she embraced me like she’d been as afraid for me as she had been for him.

  Mom made all of us dry off completely and change all our clothes and then we sat by the woodstove to defrost. All our faces were red, but Matt swore he was okay and not frostbitten.

  “I would have gotten home sooner, but I didn’t want to leave my bike,” he said as we sat by the fire. “It was just Henry and me at the post office, and for a while we didn’t realize it was snowing. Finally someone came in and told us it had been snowing for a couple of hours and we’d better get home right away. I would have gone with Henry, but he lives nearly as far from the post office as we do only in a completely different direction so that didn’t make any sense. I was afraid if I left the bike I’d never see it again. You know how things are. Besides I didn’t know if it was going to keep snowing or if it was just a squall. I hoped I’d be able to bike some of the way home, but that was impossible.”

  “You’re not going back to the post office,” Mom said. “I won’t have it.”

  “We’ll talk about that next Friday,” Matt said. “In the meantime I’m not going anywhere.”

  At first I thought Mom was going to put up a fight, but then she just sighed.

  “I’m hungry,” Jon said. “Isn’t it suppertime?”

  “I’ll make some soup,” Mom said. “I think we could all use some.”

  We had soup first and then macaroni with marinara sauce. A two-course meal, proof that this was a specialevent day.

  We spent the evening going to the front door and peering out at the snow with a flashlight. I’m going to go back there once I finish writing this and then I’ll go to sleep.